Spa: Season finale preview

The Spa 1000kms has attracted the largest entry of the season, with
nearly 40 cars applying to take part in the final event of the 2004 Le
Mans Endurance Series and nearly half of them are prototype cars.
A mix of Ferraris, Porsches and TVRs...

The Spa 1000kms has attracted the largest entry of the season, with
nearly 40 cars applying to take part in the final event of the 2004 Le
Mans Endurance Series and nearly half of them are prototype cars.

A mix of Ferraris, Porsches and TVRs will race against thoroughbred
racing cars such as Audi's R8, Courage, Dallara and Zytek. A
thrilling battle for team honours is in store, with three of the four
classes still open and very close going into the final event.

New teams and new cars will feature at one of the finest European
circuits this weekend. Courage Competition is battling with Pierre
Bruneau's Pilbeam at the head of the LMP2 class but fresh competition
comes from the Lucchini Engineering team, winners of the FIA Sports Car
Championship SR2 category in 2002 and 2003. Filippo Francioni,
Pierguiseppe Peroni and Mirko Savoldi will drive the Judd V8-powered
Lucchini on its debut, bringing the total number of prototypes entered
this weekend to an impressive 19.

The black Zytek, which sat on pole position at Silverstone in the hands
of Robbie Kerr, will not race at Spa but the little British manufacturer
will be represented once again by British teams Creation and Jota.
Nicolas Minassian put the Creation car on pole position at the
Nurburgring 1000kms in July, and the team will be aiming for a second
overall podium in the series this weekend.

GT class numbers have been boosted by the Italian Autorlando team
entering two cars, one for Piers Masarati and Liz Halliday, and a second
for Mauro Casadei, Jim Michaelian and Francois Labhardt. British teams
RSR Racing and IN2 Racing will make their debuts with TVRs and a Porsche
GT3RSR, and Denis Cohignac will race a Porsche with Sylvain Noel and
Daniel Desbrueres in a team bearing his own name for the first time this
year.

Henri Pescarolo will run Jean-Marc Gounon alongside Soheil Ayari in the
Judd-powered car for the first time. "I have been interested in
running Gounon for a long time and it was possible for him to drive with
me at Spa," said Pescarolo, who has run Emmanuel Collard and Eric
Helary alongside Ayari this year. "I didn't go to Silverstone
because we were doing some aerodynamic development work, and I think that
we will be more competitive in Belgium." Gounon has won the LMP2
category twice this season with the Courage, shared with Sam Hancock and
Alexander Frei, the driver combination currently fifth overall in the
teams' classification.

French team Larbre Competition, which has featured the superbly
successful Ferrari 550 Maranello, will also enter the LMP1 class with the
closed-top Panoz for the first time since the inaugural round of the
series at Le Mans in November 2003. Sebastien Dumez, Olivier Dupard and
Jean-Luc Blanchimain will drive the only closed-top prototype in the
field.

The battle for the inaugural LMP1 title includes the Audi Sport UK Team
Veloqx, which lies first and second in the category. Allan McNish and
Pierre Kaffer lead their team-mates Johnny Herbert and Jamie Davies, the
two Audis sharing the class wins so far this year despite some fantastic
opposition from the Zytek cars. The GTS-class Larbre Competition Ferrari
550 Maranello of Christophe Bouchut, Pedro Lamy and Steve Zacchia has
already won its class, though the Barron Connor Ferrari 575 of Thomas
Biagi, Danny Sullivan and John Bosch can match its total number of points
should it win at Spa.

Pierre Bruneau and Marc Rostan lead the LMP2 class from Alexander
Frei's Courage, which is just three points behind going into the
final round. Russian Roman Rusinov and Frenchman Stephane Daoudi hold a
slender one point lead in the GT category in their JMB Racing Ferrari 360
Modena over the Sebah Automotive Porsche.